STCIC; THE EN­ER­GY CHAM­BER

On De­cem­ber 6, 2006, the South Trinidad Cham­ber of In­dus­try and Com­merce, in col­lab­o­ra­tion with the Uni­ver­si­ty of the West In­dies and the Uni­ver­si­ty of T&T, host­ed a one-day sym­po­sium on the alu­mini­um in­dus­try in T&T.

The sym­po­sium fea­tured a host of ex­pert pre­sen­ters giv­ing com­pre­hen­sive in­for­ma­tion on the alu­mini­um in­dus­try rang­ing from its eco­nom­ic fea­si­bil­i­ty to health, safe­ty and en­vi­ron­men­tal is­sues.? The event was the first of its kind lo­cal­ly and brought to­geth­er acad­e­mia, in­dus­try, en­vi­ron­men­tal­ists, the Gov­ern­ment, rep­re­sen­ta­tives of NGOs and CBOs, mem­bers of the me­dia and oth­er mem­bers of the na­tion­al com­mu­ni­ty. The sym­po­sium was held at a time when in­tense na­tion­al de­bate fo­cused on gov­ern­ment pro­pos­als to es­tab­lish two alu­mini­um smelters. The is­sue is again at the fore­front of na­tion­al de­bate. As the rep­re­sen­ta­tive as­so­ci­a­tion of the en­er­gy sec­tor, the STCIC be­lieves it is our re­spon­si­bil­i­ty to re­fo­cus at­ten­tion on the facts pre­sent­ed at the sym­po­sium.?In a se­ries of four ar­ti­cles we in­tend to present and en­cap­su­late the salient points pre­sent­ed at the event. This is the sec­ond ar­ti­cle in the se­ries and fo­cus­es on the le­gal frame­work of the alu­mini­um in­dus­try in T&T.

For in­dus­tri­al de­vel­op­ment in any coun­try to be man­aged pru­dent­ly, there needs to be an en­trenched reg­u­la­to­ry and statu­to­ry frame­work to serve as a guide. Laws and agen­cies to up­hold these statutes play an im­por­tant role in en­sur­ing de­vel­op­ment is safe, sus­tain­able and meets well-es­tab­lished stan­dards, en­vi­ron­men­tal or oth­er­wise. With­in this le­gal frame­work, a clear de­mar­ca­tion of what is re­quired and who gov­erns the process will help save time and elim­i­nate am­bi­gu­i­ty. Dur­ing the sym­po­sium, sev­er­al speak­ers raised ques­tions about the le­gal frame­work gov­ern­ing in­dus­tri­al de­vel­op­ment in T&T and whether there were con­tra­dic­tions or ar­eas which need im­prove­ment. Ex­am­ples of best prac­tice in law and ad­min­is­tra­tion from oth­er coun­tries were al­so high­light­ed. Pro­fes­sor Ju­lian Ken­ny's pre­sen­ta­tion re­volved around the need for clear laws on en­vi­ron­men­tal reg­u­la­tion as well as up­hold­ing these laws. He point­ed specif­i­cal­ly to ar­eas where he thought the State might be in breach of leg­is­la­tion pro­claimed in Par­lia­ment.

He fo­cused specif­i­cal­ly on the Town and Coun­try Plan­ning Act, the En­vi­ron­men­tal Man­age­ment Act, the Na­tion­al En­vi­ron­men­tal Pol­i­cy and sev­er­al in­ter­na­tion­al treaties which the coun­try is sig­na­to­ry to.

In his overview of the Town and Coun­try Plan­ning Act, Ken­ny point­ed to sec­tions (sec­tion 6 (part 1) and sec­tion 5 (part 2) which stip­u­late the need for the?Gov­ern­ment to con­stant­ly re­view and re­de­vel­op a na­tion­al phys­i­cal de­vel­op­ment plan, for both the en­tire coun­try and spe­cif­ic com­mu­ni­ties every five to sev­en years. Ken­ny al­so took is­sue with the lack of draft rules for air or wa­ter pol­lu­tion and haz­ardous or tox­ic waste un­der the En­vi­ron­men­tal Man­age­ment Act.? How­ev­er, Glenn God­dard, di­rec­tor of tech­ni­cal ser­vices for the EMA, thought that this gave the EMA more lee­way to be strin­gent and draw from dif­fer­ent stan­dards used in coun­tries such as the Unit­ed States. Dr Vic­tor Coombes dis­agreed with God­dard and said fo­rum such as the sym­po­sium should be used to spur ac­tion on nec­es­sary changes to leg­is­la­tion. Keep­ing an eye on leg­is­la­tion, Ken­ny list­ed the in­ter­na­tion­al treaties T&T have ac­cept­ed and the ram­i­fi­ca­tions for not up­hold­ing them:

1.Con­ven­tion on In­ter­na­tion­al Trade in En­dan­gered Species (CITES) signed in 1984. The south-west­ern penin­su­la is an es­tab­lished cor­ri­dor of il­le­gal move­ment of wildlife from Venezuela. Trad­ing sanc­tions are ap­plic­a­ble where a coun­try does not fol­low con­ven­tion agreed pro­ce­dures.

2. Con­ven­tion on Wet­lands of In­ter­na­tion­al Im­por­tance Es­pe­cial­ly as Wa­ter­fowl Habi­tat, (Ram­sar) signed in 1992. There are no sanc­tions. There are now three Ram­sar sites des­ig­nat­ed in T&T. The Los Blan­quiza­les swamp is a large and rel­a­tive­ly un-per­turbed wet­land along the south­ern mar­gin of the penin­su­la west of Chatham.?

3. UN Con­ven­tion on Bi­o­log­i­cal Di­ver­si­ty, (CBD) signed in 1992. The prin­ci­pal ob­jec­tive of the CBD is con­ser­va­tion of bi­o­log­i­cal di­ver­si­ty, the sus­tain­able use of its com­po­nents in­ter­na­tion­al­ly. Ar­ti­cle 8 en­cour­ages sig­na­to­ries to es­tab­lish pro­tect­ed ar­eas for in situ con­ser­va­tion. Sig­na­to­ries are re­quired as far as pos­si­ble and as ap­pro­pri­ate to meet cer­tain ob­jec­tives but there are no sanc­tions.

4. Basel Con­ven­tion on the Con­trol of Trans­bound­ary Move­ments of Haz­ardous Wastes and Their Dis­pos­al (Basel) ac­ced­ed to in 1994.The Non-par­ty states may arrange bi­lat­er­al agree­ments but may not ship wastes through the ju­ris­dic­tions of par­ties to the con­ven­tion. Ship­ping wastes con­trary to the pro­vi­sions of the con­ven­tion are re­gard­ed as crim­i­nal acts. ?

5. Pro­to­col to the Unit­ed Na­tions Frame­work Con­ven­tion on Cli­mate Change (Ky­oto) signed in 1999.The con­ven­tion aims to re­duce the lev­els of emis­sions of the green­house gas­es: car­bon diox­ide (CO2); methane (CH4); ni­trous ox­ide (N2O); hy­dro flu­o­ro­car­bons (HFCs); per flu­o­ro­car­bons (PFCs); sul­phur hexa­flu­o­ride (SF6). The pro­posed lev­els ap­ply to cer­tain de­vel­oped coun­tries but the Unit­ed States and Aus­tralia have re­fused to rat­i­fy on the grounds of the neg­a­tive ef­fects on their economies.

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Ken­ny said each of these treaties de­mand do­mes­tic leg­is­la­tion to sup­port them which have not been im­ple­ment­ed in T&T.

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* A full tran­script of the sym­po­sium and all the pre­sen­ta­tions are avail­able at www.stcic.org